Chapter 7 — Cold Truths and Old Blood
The wind carried the scent of pine and distant snow as we rode north. Frost rimmed the edges of my cloak, and my breath steamed before me in the cold air. The hooves of our escort crunched against the newly paved road, a straight, proud line cut across terrain that had once swallowed travelers whole. Here and there, stone mile-markers had been set in place, carved with the direwolf sigil and distances to the next holdfast. A few farmers had already built near the edges, scratching new life from frozen soil.
The journey had been long, but good company made the miles pass quickly with good weather. Conversation and laughter lightened the burden of distance, and the wagons, sturdy things reinforced with steel bands along the axles—held up better than expected. A few minor breakdowns, a cracked wheel here, a slipped yoke there, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with a hammer, some sweat, and a little swearing. The improvements had proven their worth.
Uncle Benjen is a gloomy man though.
The new bridge over the Last River gleamed with pale granite, its arches proud and sound. I slowed to take it in. The old wooden span had rotted through years ago, now it was stone, wide enough for carts to pass side by side, flanked by steel lanterns and lined with carved wolves' heads. Progress. Real, visible progress.
And yet nothing could prepare me for what loomed ahead a few days later.
At first, it seemed like a low mountain range on the horizon. But as we drew closer, the Wall became a living thing, pale blue and blinding in the daylight, a jagged wound carved across the throat of the world. It stretched from one end of the earth to the other, a glacial monolith that caught the sky itself and held it fast. A storm crow flew near it and vanished into scale. The closer I rode, the smaller I felt.
The Wall did not rise, it loomed. A colossal stretch of ice and shadow, it split the world like the spine of a god. Seven hundred feet high and as wide as a river at its base, it swallowed the horizon, reaching east and west until it faded into a haze of white. Up close, it seemed not like something built, but something that had grown—an ancient glacier carved by forgotten giants. Wind howled along its face in keening gusts, and its surface shimmered blue and silver where the sun struck it, slick in places, jagged in others, as if it had moods of its own.
This was no mere fortification. It was a monument to fear. And resolve. And something older than both.
How did they do it? I wondered, not for the first time. How did men build this, in the dark of the world's first winter, with no cranes or steel or dragons to lift the ice blocks into place? The songs said Bran the Builder led the work, with help from giants, from the Children of the Forest, from ancient spells whispered into the stones and wind. Maesters scoffed at such tales, of course, they preferred rope pulleys and man-power, sweat and generations of labor. But no rope or man could explain this. This thing.
It was not just the size. It was the weight of it. A weight he could feel with the senses he was developing with the help of Ghost. And the knowledge of what it was built to keep out.
Bran the Builder, they said. A king with giants at his side and magic in his blood. The Pact, signed in sap and shadow. The Long Night, when darkness swallowed the world and fire flickered on the edge of extinction. All of it, shaped into this monstrous wall of ice and magic and forgotten warnings.
Castle Black sat huddled at the foot of the Wall like a forgotten child clinging to a giant's leg. It was not a castle in the southern sense, there were no soaring towers, no polished halls of stone, no shining banners. Instead, it was a place of function and endurance, built not to impress but to survive. The buildings were scattered haphazardly, as if they'd been set down at different times by different hands, with little thought for elegance or design. Most were of old black wood, weathered by snow and wind, patched in places with stone or thatch where repairs had been made over centuries of hard winters. Roofs sagged under layers of crusted snow, and smoke drifted listlessly from crooked chimneys.
The gates yawned open, and we rode through.
The courtyard was more mud than stone, churned by booted feet and wagon wheels, frozen in patches and slick in others. A massive ice and wood stair climbed up to the Wall itself, an impossible construction of ice and timber that creaked ominously in the cold, held together by ancient bolts and hope. At its base, a wide gatehouse yawned open like the mouth of a cave, leading into the shadowed tunnel that pierced through the Wall to the haunted forest beyond.
There were signs of life, if one looked closely. Black brothers moved with purpose, tending to horses, mending tack, dragging fresh-cut logs to the smithy or hauling sacks of grain toward the granaries. Ravens cawed from their rookery atop the old tower, their black wings sharp against the pale sky. Ghost prowled ahead of Jon as they entered the yard, his red eyes wary, his ears pinned flat. As they drew closer to the Wall itself, the direwolf slowed, then growled, deep and low, the sound vibrating in his chest like a warning. Jon laid a hand on his fur, puzzled. Ghost didn't like the Wall. Neither did I.
The interior of Castle Black smelled of smoke, damp wool, and old wood. It wasn't rot, not quite, but there was something weary in the stones. Unlike Winterfell, which pulsed with ancient heat from the hot springs below, Castle Black felt cold even when fires were burning. The place clung to its own chill. A memory of winter buried in every beam.
I was led through a side stairway by a steward with a mop of straw-blond hair and a sleepy expression. "The Lord Commander's expecting you, my lord." he mumbled, before giving Ghost a nervous glance and hurrying away once I'd dismissed him.
Mormont's solar was modest but well-lived. The bear banner of House Mormont hung beside the fireplace. A thick bearskin rug covered most of the floor. The air was warm with the crackle of flame, and a caged raven hopped back and forth on a perch near the desk, eyeing me with unsettling focus.
"Corn," it squawked. "Corn, corn, corn."
I tried not to smirk, but the word stuck in my mind. Corn. It had taken me far too long to notice how strange that was. Back in my first life, corn—maize—had been a crop from the so-called New World, unheard of in Europe before ships crossed oceans. And yet here it was, growing in Westeros like it belonged. But no potatoes. No tomatoes, no cocoa, no avocados, no tobacco, not even a whisper of them in maester scrolls. No coffee either, gods help me, few ships came from the Summer Islands. The absence gnawed at me in ways I hadn't expected. No chocolate. No peppers. And worst of all… no pizza. That thought stung more than it should have. I'd have killed for a hot, bubbling slice. Still, there were pumpkins in the Vale. I'd had a surprisingly decent stew made with squash and honey once in White Harbor. But what we truly needed, what Westeros didn't know it was starving for, were potatoes. Resilient, filling, easy to grow. A miracle crop, really. I made a mental note to bring them north once I could get my hands on some, if I ever did. At least the rice was coming along. The fields in the Neck were spreading fast, soaking up the warm marsh waters like they'd always belonged there. We were getting there, one step at a time. But gods, I missed pizza.
Mormont sat behind a heavy oak desk, scratching something into a parchment with a quill that looked like it had seen better years. When he saw me, he grunted, waved a calloused hand, and gestured for me to sit.
"You're taller than your father," he said. "Though I suppose you've had… different experiences."
I gave a small smile. "More books, fewer battles. So far."
He snorted. "That may change sooner than you think. Sit. You've caused quite the stir, Lord Stark." He pointed to the letters in his desk. "Word from White Harbor, Torrhen's Square, even the Rills—supplies arriving in quantities we haven't seen in centuries. Grain, lumber, finished steel, woolen cloaks that don't itch like fire ants. And rice, lots of it."
Word of House Stark supporting the Night's Watch spread faster than I expected. Once the lords of the North realized that Winterfell had opened its granaries and sent steel, timber, and wool, the rest followed, some out of duty, some out of fear of being seen as less loyal than their neighbors, and a few, I think, out of true belief in the cause. With the harvests kinder every year, their surplus flowed north: dried meats from White Harbor, barley and oats from the Barrowlands, lumber from Deepwood Motte, wool from Flint's Finger, even smoked fish and new-minted nails from Bear Island.
I sat down across from him, resting my gloved hands on the table. Ghost lay at my feet, silent but alert.
"Rice grows well in the Neck," I said. "Better with some northern adaptation and water channels. We've reclaimed marshes and redirected flows."
"The Neck," Mormont said with a dry chuckle. "Always thought the place was fit only for frogs and fever. But you've done more in five years than the most lords manage in fifty."
"I had time," I replied. "Time to study what wasn't working. The Wall stands, but its foundations have been crumbling for a long while."
The raven flapped its wings. "Corn, corn!"
"I don't know what you've taught that bird," I said, "but it's got strange taste in words."
Mormont grunted, waving me to a chair. "He only says what he hears. Apparently, he's overheard enough of my mealtime laments to develop an obsession." He poured us both a cup of watered wine.
I gave a small laugh, then tilted my head. "Corn."
The bird looked a me weirdly.
Mormont leaned back, the firelight catching on the bald crown of his head. "Well. You're odd, but useful. I'll take that. We need that, gods help me."
Hey! I'm not weird…
He poured himself a cup of dark liquid from a pewter jug, offered me none, then drank it like medicine.
"I won't waste more of your time with pleasantries, you are needed to supervise the reconstruction of the castle. I've read the ledgers. I've seen the wagons. You've done more for the Watch in half a year than the Crown has done in fifty."
I inclined my head. "The Wall isn't just a ruin to me, my lord. It's a warning. And if the Watch falls, there will be no one left to hear it."
He stood slowly and walked to the window slit, staring out at the Wall's looming edge and the courtyard.
"The Watch thanks you for it."
I accepted the cup, feeling its warmth in my hands. "It wasn't just me. I had help. Good people. Good minds. I only pushed them."
"And that," he said, "is what a commander does."
The raven flapped down from its beam to the table and pecked at a crust of bread. "Corn," it repeated.
I took a sip, let the warmth settle in my chest. "How bad is it, truly?"
Mormont's lips pressed into a thin line. "Bad. Though I won't insult your intelligence by pretending otherwise." He leaned forward. "We've a thousand men on parchment. Maybe eight hundred and fifty can still swing a sword. Half that can do so properly. The rest are broken men, thieves, poachers, and boys. We have maybe three dozen knights. A handful of veterans. The rest… I won't call them useless, but t, ey'll need shaping. Years of it."
"Desertion rates?" I asked.
"A few. Not as many as usual. The supplies that have been trickling until now help. The new food helps, so does coin in the pocket and proper boots on the feet. But still… some slip away. Some always do."
I nodded slowly. "And what of the castles?"
"We man three, Castle Black, Eastwatch, and the Shadow Tower. The rest are ruins. The builders have started patching Long Barrow and Greyguard, under your orders. It's a start. But until we have men to fill those halls, they're bones with no flesh."
I frowned. "What about the stewards? The builders? Are they holding up?"
"They're the backbone of the Watch right now," Mormont said. "The new tools, the carts, the forges, they will do more good than you know. Small victories. They matter."
I let my gaze drift to the hearth, where the flames cast long shadows across the stone floor. "And yet, it's not enough."
"No," he said. "Not yet. But gods, boy… the Watch has not been this well-supplied since Queen Alysanne rode north on Silverwing. That was a hundred years and more past. I never thought I'd see the day."
Supplies mattered, gods, they mattered more than I ever realized. Warm cloaks, full bellies, boots that didn't split after three weeks, but even as I saw the crates unloaded and my engineers start measuring the place where the new lift was going to be set up, I couldn't shake the hollow feeling. It wasn't just the Wall that was cold; it was the halls, the yards, the barracks. Too much space and not enough voices. Not enough footsteps echoing on stone.
"What more do you need, Lord Commander?"
"What we really need," said Mormont as we stood above the yard, watching a half-drilled line of recruits stumble through the unloading of supplies, "is men. The men we have are soft," he said. "And few. Boys from gutters, second sons no one will miss, thieves, rapers, bastards. Fewer good men each year. Even Gold Cloaks in the capital are better trained. And they don't freeze their cocks off."
Then I asked, "What would you do, if you had a thousand good men?"
He gave a low whistle, thoughtful. "I'd reopen five more castles. Send patrols west and east every week. I'd march north of the Wall and crush whatever wildling clans dare mass together. I'd reinforce Eastwatch by Sea, build ships again, real ones, not those rotted driftwood things we have now. And I'd start training lads the moment they arrived."
I nodded slowly. "You'll have your thousand. If you listen to me."
He gave me a look like he didn't believe me, but wanted to. "And where will you find them, Lord Stark?"
I took the book I had been writing for the past moon, many thoughts across the years abut how to save the watch written upon it, a well thought out plan.
"You would need to make a lot of reforms to the watch and its lands. House Stark will back it."
Mormont read the first few pages and then turned to me. "The old lords will howl."
"Then let them. You need bodies who can hold a sword and remember how to use it. Discipline. Incentives. Food. Protection. Maybe even families."
Mormont blinked. "Families? At the Wall?"
"You have wide lands to the south, Lord Commander." I clarified. "Look around. The land is empty. There's space. Give people incentives to work the land and they will flock to it, the forest are full of game and you have a few parts where the land is fertile, the coast has fish and much potential, and the Northern Mountains in Watch land have many closed mines. With the right incentives people will come, money will flow, and with that more people will come."
Refugees too, once the war in the south starts. I will send some here and the rest will settle my lands.
"It becomes a cycle…" Mormont keept listening and reading. "What more, Stark?"
"Incentives to serve the watch, spread word wide and far. If a man serves five years, ten years—maybe he earns the right to settle nearby a piece of land for himself. To Farm. To Guard. Raise sons who grow up with the Watch in their blood. In no other lands in the Seven Kingdoms except my own can men own land so easily, people would come."
"And when they do," Mormont said, "this old Wall may yet hold."
"Let the old watch die, tradition has killed it and held it back, keep the parts that are useful and make a new future for this place. I will invest in this, and so will Robb Stark now that he is regent in the North, the lords will follow."
And when the dead arrive in less than a decade, the lands will be able to support the tens of thousands of men I will have with me to man the Wall.
The raven flapped and screeched again, as if in agreement. "Corn!"
I smiled faintly. "Potato."
Mormont frowned. "What in the seven hells is a potato?"
The air inside Castle Black has slowly changed these past few days. Braziers stood in corners now. Fires burned in hearths once cold. Roofs no longer leaked over the bunks, and in the kitchens, the stoves sang with the scent of stew. You could almost believe the place was alive again. Lord Commander Mormont had taken my suggestions and my book as a holy revelation and kept asking questions and studying the text. Hopefully soon I would see him move to start the change of the wall.
I stood before the lift, watching as a team of builders from White Harbor tested the new mechanism. The entire structure, ropes, pulleys, weights, was built from scratch, stronger and more efficient. One man cranked the wheel with effort, but not strain, and a dozen men rose smoothly into the sky, balanced and lifted with the grace of a crane. Soon, we would begin setting it up.
It wasn't just the lift. Repairs were underway across Castle Black. The new smithy was almost finished, stocked with northern steel and proper tools. A new roof had been fitted on the rookery. Even the old tunnels beneath the Wall, once collapsed or ignored, were being cleared by pick and torch. There were new forges, freshly stocked pantries, fletching tables and armorers' benches. And all around me, men were working, not just brothers of the Watch, but craftsmen and laborers who had come north at the behest of their lords, or for gold, or for honor.
This was the fruit of a moon of effort. Of planning, letters, deals struck in Winterfell's halls. The lords of the North had begun to open their stores because of honor, and because House Stark had spoken.
Still, for all the wagons and walls and iron nails, I had come to the rookery for something else. Something older. Something I couldn't build with stone or steel.
I climbed the tower alone.
The rookery had always seemed a place removed from time. The stairs curled like a snail's shell, narrow and steep, the walls lichen-stained and moss-choked. I ran a gloved hand along the stone as I ascended, and the chill of it felt like a memory.
At the top, beneath the ravens' loft, sat Maester Aemon.
He was cloaked in black and grey, his head bowed over a cup of steaming tea. The brazier beside him hissed and popped. Ravens stirred above, restless in their sleep.
He didn't look up as I entered. He didn't need to.
"You walk like a man who knows who he is, Jon Snow." he said.
I stood in silence.
He turned his head slightly, and those cloudy, milk-white eyes seemed to look through me. "Come closer, child."
I knelt beside him, slowly, carefully. Up close, his face was older than any book could describe. His skin was parchment, his hands like bone wrapped in silk. But there was fire in him still. The embers of a dragon.
"I don't go by Snow anymore," I said.
He reached out, and I took his hand in mine. I brought it to my face. His fingers trembled as they brushed my cheek, tracing the shape of me like a blind sculptor.
"I remember this face," he whispered. "You are my blood, there is no denying that. Your hair… it's hers."
I closed my eyes, but the tears still came. Hot. Relentless.
"My mothers." I said.
A deep breath. "Lyanna Stark was winter's fire. She defied a kingdom and loved without fear. And Rhaegar… Rhaegar was many things. Too many, I fear. But he loved her."
"They said he kidnapped her," I muttered. "That she was stolen. That she died screaming."
"Lies," Aemon said with iron in his tone. "Lies wrapped in grief and swallowed by history. He crowned her of his own will. She went to Dorne for love, not chains. They were children trying to remake the world with poetry and prophecy. Your father sent letters to me, many of them. He was the first of my kin that remembered my existence since Bloodraven."
"Then everything they said was wrong," I said. "The whole war—"
"Was fought on false ground." His voice dropped. "And I… I remained silent. When the ravens brought word of Elia and her children slaughtered, I said nothing. When Lyanna died in childbed and your name was buried, I stayed here and read letters. I told myself it was not my place."
I said nothing. His hand was still against my cheek. His breath was labored now.
"But it was my place. I was a Targaryen once. I was blood of the dragon. And I let my kin be torn apart."
He pulled his hand back. "Forgive me. I have lived too long with ghosts."
"You're the first one who's seen me," I said. "Truly seen me. Everyone else guesses, or suspects, or wonders. But you knew. You remembered."
"You are no ghost, Jon… or Daemon. You are fire and snow. You are fire and ice made flesh. There is power in that. Power, and danger. They wanted to call you Visenya, you know?"
We sat in silence for a while. The ravens above muttered, wings shuffling.
"What can you tell me about them?" I asked quietly. "Rhaegar? Elia?"
Aemon nodded. "Rhaegar had the soul of a singer and the mind of a scholar. He should never have been a warrior. Elia… she was a rose from Dorne, and gentler than the court deserved. She was not jealous. She understood. She only wanted peace."
"What would he think of me?"
"I think… he would have wept," Aemon said, "to see what became of you. And I think he would be proud. You carry his mind, his drive."
I looked down at my hands. Scarred. Hardened. Not princely things.
"Uncle Aemon…" This poor man, this poor forgotten man.
"My blood..."
He embraced me and I him, my blood sung as if it had found a long-lost ember.
"Look at me, weeping like a child."
He fell silent again, and I let him be. His hand was warm on mine. I stayed there for a long time. Long enough to feel the sun shift behind the Wall. Long enough to hear the ravens stir with hunger. Long enough for my tears to dry.
Maester Aemon had gone still, his clouded eyes turned slightly toward the fire. I thought he'd dozed, lulled by memory and age. But when I shifted, his hand tightened on mine.
"There is more," he said, his voice no louder than a breath. "Isn't there?"
I nodded, though he could not see it. My heart thudded against my ribs.
"Yes," I said. "There is."
Carefully, I reached into the satchel at my side, one I had kept wrapped in furs and bound with leather cords. I untied it with deliberate hands, slow and ceremonial. It felt like breaking a vow to take it out, to show it. I had told no one yet. Not even Robb.
Inside, cradled in dark wool, was the egg.
I unwrapped it and placed it between us.
The firelight caught the shell in flickers of shadowed red and burnished black. It was heavier than it looked. The scales shimmered faintly.
Aemon's lips parted. His breath hitched.
"Dragon," he whispered.
I said nothing. There was nothing to say.
He reached for it blindly. I guided his hand until his fingers brushed the shell.
At his touch, the old man shivered. Not from cold.
"I thought they were all gone," he murmured. "Dead. Cursed. Lost in Valyria, or crushed at Summerhall."
"One remained," I said. "Buried beneath the crypts at Winterfell. Deep. Asleep."
He ran his fingers over it, reverently, as if he were touching the bones of a god. "I've dreamed of them. Of wings unfurled. Of fire in the darkness. I never thought I'd feel one again."
"Do you think it can hatch?" I asked, not knowing why I needed the answer.
"Perhaps," he said. "Perhaps not. But it is not the egg that matters."
He turned his head to face me fully. "It is you. You are the dragon reborn into snow. You are the ember that escaped the ash."
"Then why do I feel so cold?" I whispered.
"Because you have not yet burned," Aemon said. "But you will. You must."
He lifted the egg with both hands and held it close to his chest, as if to hear its forgotten heartbeat.
He handed it back to me with great care, and I wrapped it again in wool and silence.
"I don't know what to do with it," I admitted. "I don't know what I'm supposed to be."
"Kill the boy, Jon Snow. And let the King be born."
-END-